As digital video cameras and storage media become less expensive it is becoming increasingly common to use video devices to create records. One area in particular where the use of video recording is rapidly increasing is in law enforcement where video of police encounters is recorded both by dash-mounted cameras (“dashcam”) and body-worn cameras (“bodycam”). Video recordings can come from other sources as well, such as security cameras, phone cameras of witnesses, and so on. Some video recordings are used in official records, including in criminal investigations by the police. While police are charged with maintaining custody of such evidence, there have been instances where officially kept video records have been leaked and published without authorization. This can create issues where, for example, the leaking of a video recording can prejudice the public against a defendant, interfering with the defendant's right to a fair trial. In other endeavors, organizations may keep video records for their own internal use, not intended for publication. Video recordings relating to business, surveillance, military, and other records are often kept in confidence.
In all of these case, and others, it is desired to avoid unwanted publication and exposure of these records. Organizations have often created redacted versions of video recordings, where the facial features of persons appearing in the video recordings are obscured in order to protect their identity for various reasons in case the video is inadvertently, or without authorization, made public. However, original, unredacted versions of video recordings are sometimes still made public inadvertently or without authorization. Furthermore, the redaction process is largely a manual operation that requires a person to identity persons in the video recording and block out recognizable features on a frame by frame basis, which is tedious and time consuming, and also a potential source of undesired or unauthorized video publication. Unfortunately, when an unredacted video recording is made public without approval, it can be very difficult to determine how, or by who, it was made public.
Those skilled in the field of the present disclosure will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.
The apparatus and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein. The details of well-known elements, structure, or processes that would be necessary to practice the embodiments, and that would be well known to those of skill in the art, are not necessarily shown and should be assumed to be present unless otherwise indicated.